UNC Set to Unveil New Football Uniforms, Early Pics

The University of North Carolina Tar Heels are set to unveil their new football uniforms during halftime of their “Spring game” later today, however an image circulating on Twitter gives us a look at the new jerseys a little early.

What stands out instantly is the major addition of black to the set (to be honest, that could be very dark blue — it’s hard to tell, but in this photo on my monitor it appears to be black). Facemasks, numbers and the collars on the home jerseys are all black. A new italic number font has also been added.

The whole set is very much a departure to that classic UNC look of Carolina blue and white we’ve seen over the years :

UNC Tar Heels football uniform during the 2012 season

Also in a odd reversal of sorts, the team now quite closely resembles the NFL’s Carolina Panthers – a team which had chose to include Carolina blue into their original colour scheme partly in tribute to this UNC team. Here we are 20 years later and UNC has added the Panthers black. Fun.

New UNC uniforms remind us of the Carolina Panthers

The official unveiling is expected sometime around 4:30pm ET later today, we’ll get some better looks at the uniform then.

UPDATE (Apr 13/13 2pm ET): An all-black version of this uniform has been Tweeted out by UNC’s The Daily Tar Heel journalist and board member Kareem Ramadan… the horror…

UPDATE THE SECOND (Apr 13/13 4:30pm ET): Thanks to a Tweet from Jason Freeman (@uncfootball) the Assistant Equipment Manager of the UNC Tar Heels football team, we’ve learned that the numbers and the facemask in the photos above (and below) are indeed black and not blue. What a bummer.

There is a big difference between Columbia blue (Heels) and cyan blue (Panthers), even though both are a shade of light blue.

Also, the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball club had team colors of red and blue until 1948 when they switched to black and gold; Steelers have always had black and gold as their team colors since their inception in 1933. The city flag of Pittsburgh is black and gold, hence the popularity of those colors for the city’s teams. The Pens switched from light blue and Navy blue to black and gold in early 1980.

The FIRST pro sports team in Pittsburgh to wear black and gold, however, was the Pittsburgh Pirates HOCKEY club, from 1925-28; wouldn’t you know it, they switched the black to light blue for the 1928-29 season: http://www.nhluniforms.com/DefunctTeams/Pirates.html

Jackson Best

Guys, I have always been a fan of the traditional UNC jersey! But I was at the spring game yesterday and seen the jersery on the actual player, not just a picture! not a bad look! Keep in mind the new young recruit today, think about fashion on and off the field! So the school is using this as a a recruiting tool! (Oregon)! When you play in a weak ACC football conference, it makes sense to change thing up a little! Walking around talking to fellow fans, most Welcome the Change! By the way, the atmosphere on the field and in the crowd was very SEC like! Go Heels!

ingmar66

Does this mean that UNC basketball and baseball will also be dipped in black? I hope not. Carolina Blue, white and a dash of navy has always been a winning combination for UNC. I do not like the overuse of black in traditional college colour schemes and uniforms that do not have black as a colour, Get rid of it ASAP!

Ryan Zundell

Funny to see schools like Georgia, UConn and Cal make changes (with the help of Nike) that are inclusive for the entire athletic department, and try to bring about consistency across all sports . . . and in the same breath see a school like UNC (with the help of Nike) do the exact opposite to an athletic department (unless of course UNC basketball is looking to add black to their uniforms.

Tom

Are these new ugly uniforms by UNC, Rutgers, Oregon etc actually making the teams money? I haven’t heard too many people loving them or actually buying/wearing them?

Garbage. Another Nike sellout. If the “student-athletes” of today are so concerned with fashion why is it teams teams like Alabama, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Ohio State, Georgia, Florida, Stanford, Notre Dame etc (except for maybe a one-off deal) manage to keep winning without making fools out of themselves and trampling on tradition.

T. G. Miller

I totally agree with the three previous comments. The UNC uniforms were amongst the BEST in college football. And now this. How sad ! I don’t understand how Nike has gained such an influence over sports uniforms. Is there money to be made by some ? It is a shame that they have wielded their influence over so many teams and completely ruined so many traditional and attractive uniforms. Congratulations to those schools who have not caved in and have remained true to their own traditions. And to UNC……..very sad !

RSB

Don’t like it! They should have let Alexander Julian design them!

RDT

I do not like them. Looks like the Tennessee Titans.

Jackson Best

@ bc puckett I do agree with you with those top name schools and their Run of the Mill uniform scheme and their winning percentage! I do reiterate that Unc plays in a bottom of the barrell ACC conference. So changing the uniform that the Student Athlete wears 12x a year is a big deal for some decent recruit to this generation. If your a fan of the team, it wouldn’t stop you from watching! 10 years ago who would have thought that skinny jeans would be popular. So unforunately this is one way to get those recruits that Bama, LSU, Stanford, ND, Florida, etc have not picked and the university has an edge with a new uniform over unsightly Clemson Orange.